---

One day in 1989 I was sitting in a waiting room somewhere reading a magazine article about Yellowstone National Park. The reason I remember it was 1989 is because it was the year after the incredible, devastating fire in Yellowstone … a fire that charred and destroyed over 30% of the vegetation and wildlife in that massive Park. There were four pages in the article that I particularly remembered, because they were four pages consisting entirely of photographs … one full-page photograph per page … and each of the four pictures was really one picture - a north, south, east, west view, all taken from the same spot. All four pictures featured essentially nothing but charred black wood, with a sprinkling of gray ash, against a deep blue sky. Blue and black and gray … that’s all that comprised each picture. And all that interrupted flat black against flat blue was the periodic jutting spiked remains of a tree trunk … scattered about, looking like all that was left in some horrible war zone. One view showed a valley, going all the way to the horizon … black and gray extending all the way to blue. Another view showed a huge Rocky Mountain foothill in the near distance. It was solid black. And the larger hills and mountains behind that one ... all black ... against a blue, cloudless sky. Each photo was shot with a very wide-angle lens … a fisheye … that gave the viewer the feeling of standing in the very spot the photographer had stood. At the bottom of each picture one could see the ground right there … or lift the gaze up and see all the way to the cloudless blue. They were all four the simplest, most uncomplicated, least interesting … and most depressing photos I had ever seen. I have loved Yellowstone since forever, and to see these pictures gave me the feeling of topping the first peak on a hell-bent roller-coaster. They made me feel sick.

The viewer’s eyes were naturally drawn to the distance in each photo, because that accentuated the massive breadth of it all. However, if the viewer took a moment to look closely at the whole picture … to look down, to the bottom of each photo, to where both viewer and photographer were "standing", there was something to be seen that was stunning and impressive … and hopeful. It was something that, in fact, filled each of the pictures … the width and the breadth, all the way to the horizon … yet was invisible except by looking directly down at the very spot in which one was standing. For scattered about, between the myriad black charcoal and gray ash that extended infinitely in all directions, were little, tiny purple flowers that were just beginning to make their way to the surface of the carnage … to face the sun and the elements … to start the life cycle anew. They had the stems of a mere thread and a flower the size of a little finger nail. But they were a start … they were a beginning. They could only be seen from the right perspective; yet seen or not, they were there.

Each photograph, when viewed from one perspective, showed a glimpse of what the end of the world must look like. And each photo, when viewed from another perspective, showed what the beginning of the world must look like! The beginning of Life! Each photograph blended yin and yang into perfect Tao, when seen clearly … as most pictures do, when we are able to break free from the emotional noose around our heart.

On September 13, 2001 I thought of that day in 1989, sitting in a waiting room, and looking at those photographs. September 13, 2001 was two days after the incomprehensible horror of the destruction in New York City and Washington, D.C. It was a Thursday, and each Thursday evening, as I have for the past twenty years or so, I lead a yoga class. And since yoga is, above all else, a Philosophy of Being, and since I always seek to try and relay and relate a meaningful perspective on the philosophy of yoga in the class, I was struggling that day with what to say … and how to say it. I knew that two days after those horrible events most people’s minds were still going to be focused on those tragic events, and understandably trying to stretch to make some kind of connection between the beautiful and simple philosophy of the Yoga of Being … with the incredible destruction and hatred that all of the world had just witnessed. Is yoga philosophy just pie-in-the-sky fantasy? Did the sickening images on tv reveal true reality? What good is some nice, sweet, rosy philosophy … in the face of the worst terrorist act of all time?

Then, as with the photographs of charred Yellowstone, I began to "look down" … to look here … to bring my focus from the horrible images of crumbling 110-story office towers on September 11th, to the events that had followed on the heels of that horror, and brought us all the way to September 13th … two days later. I began to realize that that afternoon’s news stories had been filled with accounts of people, not just here in the United States, but the world over reaching out helping hands and a comforting embrace. Love … love … was pouring in with the same ferocious force with which those massive towers had crumbled to the ground just two days before. The very acts that were intended to buckle knees and break will were, instead, opening hearts. And once open … the pure love that knows no bounds was pouring out … filling New York … filling Washington D.C. … filling the world! Pure love was taking root in the charred remains of The World Trade Center as surely as the little purple flowers had taken root in the charred remains of Yellowstone National Park. The little purple flowers soon became more … and next came the pine tree seedlings. And it all began anew. That’s what the charred remains of Yellowstone came to. And we all know what the blossoming of love comes to.

---